Pu'er Tea & 甘

Yesterday, I bought some pu'er tea. I haven't been able to find my original jar of pu'er since moving, and it had been too long. Pu'er is my favourite tea, of all teas. I may treat English Breakfast with milk as the default 'cuppa', but I actively adore pu'er.

I don't know if T2 can be said to purvey the finest specimens of this tea, but it's good enough for me. That lovely whole and upward-rising flavour, the beautiful clarity of the liquor; I love to disturb the water, and watch skeins of red tea rise up in the glass.

This led to me, unsurprisingly, reading the wikipedia article on pu'er. Pu'er is indeed a unique tea among all teas, and the measuring and production of it appears to be more complex than brewing of beer. Especially considering good pu'er is considered to be aged at least 10 years. Yunnan has always been high on my list of places to go, but after reading that article, oh. I want to visit the tea factories and the Six Great Tea Mountains of old, and see the 'feral tea plantations'.

As you can see, I was having a jolly good time educating myself on the basics of pu'er production, when I came to the following:

甘 is my family name. That is my family seal.

I have never, in 33 years of reading, learning, experiencing and communicating, never, not once, encountered our name beyond the scope of our family. The fact that I can't read Chinese contributes to that, regardless, I haven't even met anyone who shares our name in pinyin. 'Gān' is Mandarin; our name is Cantonese, or Hakka, but that is the character.

I forgot how to breathe, and then promptly broke down crying. I can't articulate why. I'd guess that, somewhere in the sub-levels of my subconscious, is a plaintive and desperate need to belong. To something. Let me stake a tiny claim in any culture that predates my own experience.

And it's tea terminology. It's something I love without obligation.

I'm crying again.

ETA: The lovely Charles Tan brought this site to my attention.  It provides examples of pronunciation and accent for 甘. The variations in regional accents and dialects is obvious, even without examples from all Chinese languages. 

I am the motherfucking sea.

Too readily and eagerly I give people power over me. Readily, eagerly, and yet unwillingly. Too often the awareness of what intangible contract I am entering into is accompanied by a sinking despair, sinking as it comes from so high above, drifting down through all the layers of sky to rest on my shoulders and confirm that, yes, that was not wise, and no, they will not acknowledge or respect the power you have given them, and no, they have given you now power in return, and yes, you are a silly girl.

That's okay. I'm used to it. Perpetually exasperated, but used to it.

Just as quickly I recognise the imbalance and while I have no control over gut reactions to throw away comments, I am badhorse at seeing it goes no further. No stewing. No seething and brooding. No wringing and twisting and choking. I'm the little boy with his finger in the dyke, stopping the sea from ruining the town.

This is also an exaggeration. There is seething and brooding galore. There are leaks my other fingers can't reach. But. You know. The wall is holding.

Minutes ago, I read something that kicked off a gut reaction. I sat there, just observing that kick-in-the-guts sickness and unworthiness ripple out through my limbs, and didn't immediately stick my finger in the dyke because that's just fucking ridiculous. Why the fuck do I still let them effect me so? It isn't as though I have not accidentally on purpose given other people power over me since then, people who do acknowledge and respect that, people who in turn have given me power over them, people who drive me to giddy distraction and are not just good to me, but good for me.

Thinking on it, I don't believe I've ever successful taken back power once given.

It would be nice if I was more discriminatory about who I let effect me. It would be really, really nice if I had any sort of control over that. But, I don't think that is likely to happen. If I could change my willingness to give pieces of my vulnerability to others, I don't think I would. I suspect that would only result in never letting anyone in, and I would rather suffer the hurt and damage that others, unwittingly or not, inflict upon me than what I do to myself.

I'm not putting my finger in the dyke. There should not be a sea behind the wall.

(And just like that, there was not.)

(A magic trick she will be forced to perform on herself again, and again, and again, and she will, she will, she will.)

ETA: Bizarrely, not two minutes later the internet threw this in my face:



"Love" means many things.

There are probably people reading this, thinking "You do this to me," at me.
I am sorry.
None of us control our hearts.
And only some of us control our heads.

BEST. STARTING LETTERS. EVER.

When something like that hits at 10:50am on a Friday morning there's no point in pretending that any further productivity will be forthcoming. Hot porn heralded the beginning of the weekend.

In September, 13 Years

"This isn't brought on by any specific event," he said. "It's more a general reminder that we know a lot of the stuff that lands on our desks is confronting, to say the least, and if you don't want to work on something, then say no. That's okay, no one will have any issues with that. Along the same lines, if you feel that perhaps you need to talk to someone about dealing with the material, whatever that material may be, approach your team leader, a member of the leadership team, whoever you feel comfortable with, and we'll organise a counseling session for you."

:::

The photos I see and documents I read in a single day are more than most of you would be comfortable with even skimming. The confrontation is gone. It is all just so much paper now.

:::

"There is someone down at corporate reception wanting information on making an application, do you want to take it?"

No.
I went down.

He was in his eighties, with grey-blue eyes that were milky with age. He was a couple of days unshaven, with sparse white bristles on his jowls and hanging from the wattle at his throat. Hands that had been firm and strong, but had a little tremor in them now, the skin slack around his knuckles. His mouth always a little open, breathing being now task enough that the nose was not enough for his aging lungs. His mouth moved a certain way when he spoke. A hearing aid in his ear, so I was careful to speak clear steady.

They all want to share their life story, circling around and down until finally reaching the matter at hand. "I'll tell you this, back in Tasmania-" and I settled in with my best listening face, prepared to endure waffle.

He didn't waffle, or talk in circles. Events were explained in chronological order with cause and effect in place, until the end, where he was now, with a tangled mess of bureaucracy. Oral story-telling came naturally to him, with the right pauses and no stumbling over his words. He didn't over-dramatise, but didn't attempt to hide his emotional investment in the events either. The mind was well sharp, perhaps lost in the events around him, but sharp.

It took a little teasing on my part to pluck out exactly what he sought, most of which was not in our possession. Still, I called the other organisation and got enough information to set him on the right course, and figured out what we could do for him.

I let him wander afterward. The story he had told me was a sad one. Those old eyes had brimmed more than a few times, although he never broke down. I would not stop him from indulging in happier reminiscences. It was never just a smile or grin, he could do no less than chuckle when mirth took him. His eyes near disappeared the few times this happened, as his sagging cheeks rose with cheer.

"Thank you," he said, an hour and a half later. "You've been incredibly helpful, and I've taken so much of your time."

I gave him a smile and told him to go get a cup of tea.

:::

It's all just so much paper, except when it isn't.

:::

Fencing with red tape, paper, bureaucracy and legalese is tough if you're not already familiar with the illogical, seemingly-petty and idiosyncratic rules of this alternate but co-habited dimension. He was frustrated with the brick walls he'd run against, and although he was far from settled, having someone actually listen to him brought some calmness about him.

It isn't the first time I've snuck in some ninja therapy on a member of the public. Just to be listened to is all a lot of stricken hearts need to rest themselves enough, just enough. It is no great tax, although time that I'm sure my boss would rather I put to better use. All it requires is patience.

:::

It isn't the content that gets beneath my skin. These years of exposure have led to a forced evolution. I have an empathy-off switch, and a different perspective on humanity.

:::

I couldn't not listen to this man, and I couldn't not empathise with him.

He reminded me of my grandfather.

Even smelt like him.

When you look for signs, you find them.

There is nothing about moving that isn't horrible, and there is nothing about packing that isn't horrible, but, oh, well, if you insist, the time spent pulling my books from the shelves and handling them and running my palms along their spines and fanning the pages and remember what it was to succumb to this book or licking my lips in anticipation of one I have not had the pleasure of yet, well, yes, okay, that's not "horrible" as such, possibly more of a delightful agony in knowing I possess all these fine works of art and may only ever read one at a time and there just never seems to be enough time.

I do love my library. That's what I have you know, all walls in the lounge room covered in shelves and full of books. My library. Mmm. One day, I will have a proper room dedicated to only to being the home of books, and I'll have a fine deep armchair perfect for curling up in, and it will be a quiet place.

I just picked up the special edition of Shriek: An Afterword and flicked through the first few pages, and came across a page of four short quotes;

No one makes it out.
--Songs: Ohia

If you live a life of desperation,
at least lead a life of loud desparation.
--Dorothy Parker

We dwell in fragile, temporary shelters.
--Jewish Prayer Book

The dead have pictures of you.
--Robyn Hitchcock

And they resonated, in much the same way the impact of an icepick to the left temple has resonance. Parker made me laugh. Oh, I aspire to such philosophy. This blog is nothing but amplification, now, dance with me.

The Songs:Ohia line is not entirely accurate. We all make it out, in the end.

Stranger Things Happen At Sea

The Most Loyal of Black Dogs

Yesterday a friend dreamed of having a great big wolfy dog that never left their side. Yesterday my mum dreamed of one of our current dogs and one of our past dogs and the work she had to do to get them out of a thunderbowl.

It is therefore not particularly surprising that this morning I dreamed of dogs. One of our current dogs playing with an enormous St Bernard who simply adored her, as everyone does. A surprisingly non-confrontational dream, considering. Not at all my unconscious's standard fare.

What You Choose To Be Proud Of

I just put my laptop Eddie on mute.

Only one person reading this will understand the satisfaction I take from this statement. That person is probably laughing at me.

Sharks, Dolphins, Barracuda, Tuna, Whales, Gannets, and You

There was no summary of the year type post for 2009. This was partly because I was out of the country when the new year rolled around, but I had intended to write something up when I was reinserted in my life.

I wrote that post about four times, and then walked away. I'm still not entirely sure why. Sometimes I think it's because I'm still in the midst of some turning tides, and so have no perspective from which to analyse even that which is a year behind me. Say nothing unless you are sure of what you're saying. Don't give your future self any more ammunition to use against yourself. Or, it could simply be that the territory in which the currents have shifted the most are territories I do not wish to share indiscriminately with the internet. With increasingly frequency I pause when posting, as I do not know who reads this any more.

The vaguest of summaries states that in 2009 I became a solid person.

Entering 2009 I wrote;

We come into the world without shape. We're perpetual works in progress. We die unfinished. I have pondered what I need to do in order to recover and regain the parts of me I have lost, but I will take no such steps. The world will do with me what it will, and make of me what it would. We're none of us given time to be whole. We'll never be whole, always being shaped by what's come, and what's yet to come.

I also wrote:

Never been single-minded about anything.

I'm a school of fish. Not a very coherent school of fish. The individual parts of me were in constant opposition. Fish were zipping around in all directions, no agreement between any of them, with 'school' being used in the loosest possible sense.

There have been predators disturbing the water and so disrupting the fish, but I can't blame it all on the sharks and gulls. Even without exterior threats, this school of fish would be a churning chaos of frenetic fish going nowhere and doing nothing.

Last year, not only did all the predators disappear, but the fish just...came together. It almost felt like I'd reached the age I am supposed to be. Maybe it's the first calm water I've ever been in. I don't know why, but suddenly all the fish started moving in unison.

I just...I've never felt so whole. Solid. Strong. Certain. I trusted myself with myself, trusted myself with the decisions I made and that I could weather any consequences that came from them.

Which isn't to say I was a person, no. Just because a million fish move in unison doesn't stop them being a million fish, but if they behave as if they are one mind, then nearly the same as really being one mind.

Lately, there have been sharks in the water.



Doubt, my old friend. I haven't missed you.

YAH RLY.

If you think the only reason I bought this bar of chocolate was because it had "ORLY" as a brand name, you would be 100% correct.

It was good chocolate too.

They're evil! EVUHL!

Fire and flight no turn off for horny devils (Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the headings The Ages chooses to run on their site.)

SHE may look cute, but Smooch is a ferocious little devil. Born amid the ashes of Black Saturday, her existence is a small but significant victory in the desperate fight to save the Tasmanian devil.

The feisty six-month-old is one of 28 disease-free joeys born in Healesville Sanctuary's new devil breeding centre in the aftermath of February's bushfires.

Amazingly, all nine of the centre's wild-caught females became pregnant soon after being evacuated to Melbourne Zoo as embers rained down.

''We were very concerned that evacuating them would disrupt the breeding cycle because it's extremely stressful and traditionally devils have a really low breeding success rate,'' senior keeper Tiffany Eastley said.

''But they didn't seem to mind at all. Usually they have only a 30 per cent reproduction rate in captivity, so to have a 100 per cent reproduction rate is amazing..."

I can't be the only one getting Midwich Cuckoo vibes. They're telepathic-psycho-kinetic-hivemind furballs, and they will be the ruin of us all.

From Lake Baikal, With Love

There are degrees of insomnia, as any who've brushed with sleep deprivation well know. Sometimes sleep won't come because it (quite rightly) does not wish to inhabit a head full of stress and anxiety. Sometimes it won't come because you ate too much sugar during the day. Sometimes it won't come because you're not done thinking yet. Sometimes it won't come because you're not done crying yet. Sometimes it won't come because you (stupidly) read a scary book in bed and gave yourself the willies. Sometimes it just won't come, end of story.

For those cases in which the root of insomnia is purely thought related, I keep a well-stocked pile of munitions, each used with the sole purpose of distracting me long enough to calm the fuck down and get my unconscious on.

A movie generally does the trick, but occasionally I'm so worn out even the act of watching is asking too much effort of me. In those instances I fire off set of podcasts. They're not on my iPod. They live only on the laptop. No headphones, no visualizer, nothing to do with me. They read to me, and I do nothing.

Reading, in these instances, doesn't work. Ever. I spend a lot of my energy keeping other people's voices out of my head, for my own sanity. I suppose occasionally I go too far, and stagnate without external input, and the only cure is to have some outside voice feeding words in my ears that I couldn't have strung together myself, that have no source in my life. The differing presence of self lying in active reading requiring my mind's voice overlaying the prose and passive listening in which the narrative overlays my mind.

As a result, I've come to associate Jeff VanderMeer's story Logorrhea, as read by Jason Erik Jundberg, with extremes. It only comes out when I'm too far gone, and never fails to reel me back in. I hate and fear being in such a state, but if that means I'm granted permission to listen to the story, well then I kinda don't mind it. It wouldn't work as insomnia salvation if it wasn't an exceptional piece of work.

These are the things the masses do with your stories.

As of yeserday, Jeff VanderMeer's novelette Errata has been posted on Tor.com, as both eyes-only and podcast.

Given my irrational apprehensions, I opted for the podcast.

There's another form of insomnia, which I forgot to mention as usually I'm smart enough to avoid it: getting sucked into a story you love too much to voluntarily break free of.

I'm tired. Fuck you.

That was just fucking brilliant. It hops gaily between the absurd and the surreal, and I want to use the word 'subversive', yet I don't believe it is so tricksy and sneaky and fixated on revenge as to subvert. Why would it, when it can take off and do its own thing? Which is what it has done, and without apology.

There's also a penguin in it.

I ask Juliette for advice sometimes. “Juliette,” I say. “Is Ed for real? Is the Book for real? Is James for real? Is this really going to work? Or is it a form of madness?”

“I dunno,” Juliette says. “I’m just a penguin. But I can bring you some fish, if you’d like.”

This is why he's been my favourite author for years, and I stalk his publications like a stalking thing. I'll never fear of reading the same thing twice under different titles. I hope there's a dead tree version of this, as I don't particularly want to condemn it to 4am visits.

In some weird synchronicity, the two stories podcast revolve around Lake Baikal, the largest fresh-water body on Earth. I fear now that I can no longer dream of travelling to Syberia to visit the lake, as with every listen its character solidifies, and this fictional lake cannot exist if I stand on the shores of its reality.

And throughout it all, a question on the cellular level rising slowly in the communal, generational penguin mind: Why?

"THE FIRST AND THE LAST WORDS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH WILL BE SIR!"

A penguin who was previously made a Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Army has been knighted at Edinburgh Zoo.
picture from here


There's a video in the top link showing his knighting, and unsurprisingly he's not impressed with the sword. Or the guardsmen he's inspecting. He arcs up at one of them, who probably isn't sucking his gut in enough. I love the commentator stumbling at just the moment of "that you are, as a- as a penguin, in all ways qualified-." Nils Olav is is a KNIGHT. You address this King Penguin as SIR. But more importantly NORWAY IS BUILDING A PENGUIN ARMY.

Yeah, I totally control the course of history. Me and the Norwegian King are tight like that. Just you wait till the dinosaurs show up.

BOOM DE YADAAAA

I loved this xkcd comic, but having learned of its source, I love it moar.



Several times this clip has been watched, and will be watched again, and I think I'm going to seek out an mp3. SBS used the line "the world is an amazing place" for years, and may still do. Lack of TV exposure in recent months amplifies my ignorance in this field. It's a great line, and very true, but it's delivered by the SBS voice over guy, and he's...well, he's the SBS voice over guy. He has a Deep Serious Meaningful Voice. Whereas this ad revels in dorky glee, and "the world is just awesome" is a sentence that does the same.

True glee is very, very dorky.

From BoingBoing, images of London and the rising sea levels.



Which is almost exactly what I was aiming for with this 7wishes post, except I don't believe London will have crocodiles. I don't know how my new abode would cope with a rising sea, I suspect the sea wouldn't reach it particularly fast. I'm not on the ground floor anyway. Don't need to worry about flooding, just crocodiles. The flyscreen comes off and the window is wind out. I could cast lines out the bedroom and catch lunch, just like these women.

triceratops come home

This postcard is currently up on Postsecret. I think Bert sent it. I know Bert sent it.